Jared Sullinger was going to be a basketball player, and a smart one. He had very little choice in the matter. He was doing drop steps at age two and soaking in the intricacies of timing, touch and rhythm that the best players have nearly every moment of every day thereafter.
"Jared is a product of his environment, it’s about as simple as that," his oldest brother J.J. tells me on the phone from Ohio where the Sullingers are a basketball name that carries reverence throughout the state.
His father, Satch Sullinger, is one of the most successful high school coaches in Ohio history. Jared’s older brothers, J.J. and Julian, both played Division I basketball at Ohio State and Kent State, respectively. There is no situation on the floor their big baby brother hasn’t seen or experienced, and he’s got an answer for almost all of them.
"I got it from my brothers, from Dad," says Sullinger. "Growing up, I had to be able to handle the ball, no matter how big I was, I had to be able to make decisions, I had to be able to shoot, I had to be able to make plays whether it was passing or setting screens. I learned everything through them."
He absorbed the lessons well. He was the top high school player in the country as a senior and averaged 17 points and 10 rebounds a game in two seasons at Ohio State, leading his hometown Buckeyes to a 63-10 mark.
After his four seasons in Boston ended with the Celtics choosing to let him walk as a free agent, Sullinger is the most significant addition the Raptors made in the off-season.
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No team dominated the summer news cycle like the Golden State Warriors. The Toronto Raptors will get a first-hand glance at why when they host Steph Curry & Co. in the first game of the NBA’s pre-season on Saturday night in Vancouver.
Normally these early exhibitions fly under the radar but the game will feature the Warriors debut of former MVP Kevin Durant, who joined the 73-win defending Western Conference champions and deposed NBA titlists in July, a move that will either solidify the Dubs as the next dynasty or prove that sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.
But perhaps the team on the floor that has made the more dramatic change to the way they do business is actually the Raptors.
In saying goodbye to the carved-from-stone Bismack Biyombo and saying hello to his replacement, the amply padded six-foot-nine Sullinger, the Raptors may be making a significant change in direction, even if the move hardly stirred the league’s headline writers in the off-season.
Watching a role player leave for Orlando for the eye-opening $72-million contract that Biyombo got while welcoming a former first-round pick who has battled weight problems and injuries on a one-year, $6-million “prove it” deal in Sullinger is not the kind of move that captures the league’s imagination.
But in the Raptors world view, it marks a significant change that will likely hold the answer to the question of whether Toronto can build on their 56-win regular season and run to the Eastern Conference Finals or if 2015-16 will be the franchise’s high-water mark for the foreseeable future.
Biyombo was essential to the Raptors’ identity as a knockdown defensive team that feared no one. He gave them starter-quality depth at centre and a rangy brand of rim protection that is almost essential in a league where bigs that can show hard on screens for three-point shooters and still get back to the paint have never been more valuable.
"It’s tough to replace everything Biz did," says DeMar DeRozan.
Raptors head coach Dwane Casey had been begging for a roster with players that can provide the kind of slug-it-out defence he prizes and got all of that in Biyombo, whose value far exceeded the $3 million he signed for after the Charlotte Hornets inexplicably gave up on their No. 7 pick from the 2011 draft.
The start of the exhibition season is a time for looking forward but Casey sounded wistful when asked about Biyombo, whose remarkable playoff performance starting in place of an injured Jonas Valanciunas helped price him out of the Raptors’ cap space.
"His intensity and toughness, he kind set the tone for us defensively," said Casey.
What tone will Sullinger help set? There can’t be many big men in the NBA with more contrasting styles and physiques than Sullinger and Biyombo.
Biyombo, raised in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, came to basketball late and has always struggled with the nuances of the offensive side of the game, although he compensated with elite athleticism, fitness and a willingness to drop the hammer while setting screens or blocking shots.
For most of his career, Biyombo was among the NBA leaders in players that teammates chose not to pass the ball to (according to a breakdown on fivethirtyeight.com, he was eighth in that category last season) a reflection of his stiff hands and even more wooden skills when he did get his hands on the ball.
The result was that the Raptors often got bogged down during the stretch of games with Biyombo on the floor as teams tilted their defence to Kyle Lowry and DeRozan, confident that they would either hesitate to move the ball to Biyombo when he was open or that bad things would happen when they did.
That won’t happen with Sullinger on the floor. He’s too clever for that. He used to play point guard when needed in high school and thrives late in the shot clock when things break down. The adjective that gets used over and over again is the feel he has for the game, one of those things that’s hard to describe but you know it when you see it.
DeRozan sensed it the first time he played pick-up with Sullinger.
"He can get guys open with his screens," DeRozan said. "He can pop out and nail the fifteen-footer and can hit threes too, he can stretch the floor. When he puts the ball on the floor and gets his back on you, he’s under the basket. He’s a good passer as well.
"He’s got a great feel; you see that when he was in Boston. It’s going to be exciting."
The question is will it be effective.
For all his flaws, Biyombo’s relentless energy — either coming off the bench or filling in as a starter — was culture-defining for the Raptors a year ago.
Sullinger brings with him questions about his fitness, an issue he’s been battling since childhood.
"I’d be lying if I said he didn’t have a weight problem," says his brother J.J. "It used to be worse than it is now. He was always the best player on the floor but he’d make a great play on offence and take the defensive possession off or vice versa. We always knew he was going to be good, we just didn’t know if he’d get that figured out."
Sullinger has battled his weight since joining the NBA but feels that he’s on top of it now.
"Weight is always going to be a conscious effort," he says. "I can’t have a day off and if I have a day off I have to get right back on it. Every day is going to be a battle and I’m ready to take that battle now. I’m ready to take the bull by the horns and knock it out."
The Raptors want to start Sullinger alongside Valanciunas at power forward. The appeal is to have another decision-maker and playmaker that can take the burden off Lowry. They believe he has the skills that they can run some offence through him and that he can shoot corner threes well enough to create the room that Lowry and DeRozan need to operate.
And despite his girth Sullinger has always graded out as an above-average team defender, another reflection of his basketball IQ. His defensive rating of 100 points allowed per 100 possessions was actually higher than Biyombo’s 101 (according to Basketball Reference) and his defensive WinShares were better too: 3.6 to 3.1.
The fear is that the Raptors will be too slow in transition to play both Sullinger and Valanciunas together or that Sullinger’s cleverness won’t make up for the bull-in-a-china-shop approach that Biyombo used so effectively.
Beginning on Saturday, Raptors fans will get their first taste of what it will all look like.
There is little question that with Biyombo gone the Raptors will have a different feel thanks to Sullinger opening shop with his family’s business north of the border.